My Little Online Shopping Secrets

I hate shopping at the mall- the crowds, the pushing and shoving, the lack of stock, the violence- I discovered online shopping when my firstborn was just 5 weeks old and there was no way I was leaving the house with a newborn baby! I haven't looked back since.
Seven years later I've learned how to get really good deals with online shopping. Here's my secrets:

1. join ebates. they act as a middleman for other major online retailers. Go thru their site to get to, say, Nordstrom, and you'll get a check back for 6% of your purchase a few weeks later. If you join Ebates thru THIS link, you and I both will get $5 in our accounts, just because you joined!

2. So you get a % back from Ebates. Well, try to shop from online stores that you'll get something else back from them, too. Free shipping; savings when you spend x amount. You know, really good deals. If you look at my favorite coupon saving site; retailmenot.com; you can find some great deals and even tell the site if a specific coupon code worked for you!

3. Be sure to check out the store's return policies, their estimated shipping times, and all that good stuff. Saving ten dollars might sound good, but if it causes a headache in the long run; don't do it!! I like that I can order things from gap.com and return them in the store if I want to.

4. Here's my favorite- Personalized photobooks from Photoworks.com. Grandparents love them, and you can make all sorts of other gifts for other people too. Each book costs about $35. If I order it on Cyber Monday, I'll get back 18% of the order on my ebates rebate. But, if I use a coupon code that I have, I'll save 20% and get free shipping on my order to start with. That's a pretty sweet deal! (you do the math, I'm tired!!) And, they're a Seattle-based business and so it won't take forever to ship to me.

Last year, I got a check back from ebates for about $30 from my holiday shopping. From stores I was going to shop online from anyways! And I instantly turned around and spent that thirty bucks on something fun for myself- a reward for being such a savvy shopper!